Polar Opposites

Polar Opposites is the extraordinary story about the fierce competition between two of the world’s most famous explorers – Sir Ernest Shackleton and Vilhjalmur Stefansson – at the very end of the Heroic Age of polar exploration.

In 1921, the two explorers competed for Canadian government support to mount an Arctic expedition with the goal of discovering an isolated island continent, an “arctic Atlantis,” believed to exist in the Beaufort Sea, and to reach the North Pole of Inaccessibility.

There is a remarkable symmetry between the two men, but also striking differences. Both lost their ships to the polar ice: but Shackleton was able to save all of his men after Endurance was crushed in the Weddell Sea, and his escape from Antarctica is widely considered one of the great chapters in polar exploration. Stefansson’s Canadian Arctic Expedition, on the other hand, lost 11 men on Karluk, and six others later – more than any expedition since Sir John Franklin’s.

The two explorers met in London in 1913 and became “great friends”. But soon, a vicious tug of war commenced to see who would win government backing, with Stefansson alleging his friend had double-crossed him. What followed were the final expeditions of Shackleton and Stefansson, each marred by tragedy.

Part exploration history, part adventure, and part black comedy, Polar Opposites is a lively account of the bitter rivalry of two of the 20^th century’s foremost polar explorers, as well as the breathtaking machinations of the Canadian government, marking the end of an era.